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“I’m giving that a pass, Cals, because he keeps saving your goddamn life. But, I mean, honestly…” He frowns. “Could you make a bit of aneffortto not need saving so fucking much?”
I flip him off, and he chuckles as he fucks with my hair again.
“C’mon. Everyone’s waiting in the library.”
Neve and Eilish barrel into my arms when we step into the library where all my family and all of the Kildares are, together with Jack Dorsey. They both hug me fiercely, none of us saying a word before they pull back with tears in their eyes.
Instantly, Castle’s the next target of their hug attack. I grin as I watch him hug them back with all the love of an older brother.
Even if, in the end, he’s not.
It’s funny. Even though they’ve been my best friends since I first met them, I’ve also always been envious of Neve and Eilish’s relationship with this man I secretly loved—noticing the bond they had with him, the way he grinned whenever they were around, and the time and history they had with him.
I was sad that they had his love, however platonic, and I didn’t.
I flush when he pulls back from them and wraps an arm tight around my waist.
Yeah, I don’t feel that way anymore.
Elsa and Una come over next to hug me tightly and tell me how glad they are that we’re both okay. But then it’sallYa-ya, who comes rushing into the room and instantly shoves everyone aside to pull me into her frail arms. She cries into my shoulder, stroking my hair and murmuring in a mix of Greek and English how happy she is that I’m okay, and unharmed.
Then, even before I can respond, she’s turning and hugging Castle even tighter, crying against his chest and thanking “her Adonis” over and over for saving me.
When everyone’s done telling Castle and I how glad they are that we’re alive—and I mean, heck, that’s always nice to hear—Jack Dorsey stands and nods to where Castle is sitting in one of the tall-backed armchairs, with me perched on his thigh.
He clears his throat. “I’m sorry you both had to go through that.” His brows knit. “Since I’ll be overseeing the case and liaising with the FBI office out on Long Island, I just want to be clear…” He looks right at Castle. “Youwon’tbe pressing charges against Mrs. Lin? Is that right?”
I smile as my hand slips into Castle’s and squeezes. We’ve already talked about this, at length. And as much as I am usually filled with vengeful touch-my-family-and-I’ll-cut-you energy, I’m with Castle when it comes to Megan Lin.
I’m choosing to forgive her. To see past my anger and recognize the pain and the terrible demons tearing her apart from the inside.
“No, we won’t be,” Castle says quietly. “Provided you follow through with what we discussed.”
Jack nods. “It’s already been approved. She’ll skip an official trial since she’s agreed to be interned at a psychiatric facility. She…uh…” Dorsey smiles wryly. “I interviewed her last night at Bellevue Hospital. She mostly wanted to make sure you both knew how sorry she was.”
“I know she is,” Castle says with a deep sigh. “And I can’t even imagine the pain she’s been living with for the last ten years.”
Last night, when he and I were talking about it, he framed it this way: that while he came home with his scars but immediately found a family and a purpose, when Jasondidn’tcome home, Megan lost both her family and her purpose. And she never figured out how to get them back.
“Which brings us to Special Agent DiMarco.”
I squeeze Castle’s hand tighter when I feel him tense up.
Jack holds up a file folder. “This is obviously classified, but…” he rolls his eyes as he glances around at the small crowd of us all gathered around. “Fuck, I don’t know why I even bother to give a shit anymore.”
He drops the file on the coffee table in front of him, where Deimos plucks it up.
“Jeremy DiMarco had been under investigation by CIA Internal Affairs for the last ten years,” Dorsey begins. “The only reason he wasn’t already in prison is that the Agency was hoping he’d lead them to bigger targets. It ishighlysuspected that he…” He grimaces as he looks at Castle. “That he was directly involved with the deaths of your men on that mission in Kabul. I’m sorry, Castle.”
When I turn to look at the man I love, my heart breaks when I see the pain exploding behind his eyes. He looks away from me, stabbing his gaze out the window at Manhattan as I take both his hands in mine and squeeze, lifting them to my lips to kiss them softly. He turns back to me, his eyes meeting mine as he smiles quietly.
“Through his offshore accounts,” Dorsey continues, “the CIA has traced money exchanges back to the Saudis, the Russian government, Mossad, even ISIS. The guy had his fingers in a lot of pies, and owed money toeveryone. Seems he kept doing jobs for and borrowing money from one piece of shit organization to pay back some other piece of shit organization he owed. The speculation is that he knew he was running out of time to pay some of these people back, and had been tipped off that the Agency was onto him. He’d recently bought property in Vietnam through a shell company, and had an appointment booked with a prominent plastic surgeon in Brazil who is known to have worked with a number of high-profile cartel bosses.”
“So he was planning to disappear,” Deimos mutters.
Jack nods. “Looks like it, yeah. And he needed the money he lifted from your trust, Castle, and the money he washopingto get from ransoming you both back to your families, to pay off his lenders before fading into the sunset, rather than risk they would still somehow hunt him down.” Dorsey sighs as he looks at the both of us. “We were able to find some better CCTV camera angles from the nights of both attacks. The shooterwasDiMarco, and that first time it looks like he was deliberately trying to make it look like the work of El Cirujano, the hitman. There’s also evidence that places DiMarco in Mexico on the same day that El Cirujano was shot and killed while staking out that cartel boss.”
“And the incendiary device in the apartment bathroom?” Castle mutters.
